The Truth About Ourselves
The human genome sequence has been completed and shows some surprising findings. Despite having one-third less genes than estimated, human beings are still very complex. With access to disease genes, medicine and diagnostics will be revolutionised. However, this will also raise ethical questions on cloning and genetic privacy.

Hope In Hell
Four weeks after the earthquake, Gujarat is still coming to terms with the devastation. True grit is emerging from the rubble but it will be some time before lives are rebuilt. INDIA TODAY's teams went out across these death zones, capturing stories which record this renewal.

Simmer Time

Profitable Loss
36 With over 90,000 employees opting for the VRS scheme, PSU banks are set to get over their problem of overstaffing. But is it going to make banks more competitive in this age of automation? Besides, it is also going to cost more than Rs 7,500 crore and will deprive the banks of skilled workers.

Paper Money

Spreading Terror
The attacks on Delhi's Red Fort,
the Srinagar airport and the city's police control room show the Lashkar-e-Toiba is increasingly catching the Indian security forces unawares-and emerging as the most daring terrorist group from Pakistan.

Face Off
It's David Vs Goliath as India play an Australian demolition squad at home. What makes the Aussies tick and how can India take them on?

Cricketwatch:
Ashley Mallett

From The Editor In Chief

What happens when man plays God? Well, we don't know that yet. But we do know, now that the decade-long Human Genome Project has identified the blueprint of life, as it were, that it is possible for us to study and manipulate the approximately 30,000 different genes common to mankind. At a philosophical level, it means the end of the theory of superior races. At a fundamental level, it can mean evolution on call and the end of disease.

Though the mapping of these infinitesimal "bio-chips" was undertaken by two teams in United States, the import is global. Last June, the teams had the genome sequence. Last week, they announced just the basic analysis of those findings and that is so awesome that we chose it as the subject of our cover story this issue, even as militant groups such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the aftermath of the earthquake-our other major features-continue to jolt India. Undoubtedly, human genetics will be the hot topic for the next decade, very much like software was for the previous one, because it affects all of us and the studies have a long way to go. But the latest revelation that genes number 30,000-less than a third of earlier estimates-has caused major excitement because it means scientists now have a significantly less number of genetic codes to decipher the causes of various diseases, target them and prevent them.

Moreover, for a developing country like India, where despite years of effort disease is still commonplace and good healthcare only a dream for most, nothing can understate the importance of gene mapping. "It will help a multi-ethnic nation like India discover who we are," says Senior Correspondent Supriya Bezbaruah who holds a doctorate in molecular biology and wrote the cover story. "But more importantly perhaps, it will help us zoom in on diseases and eradicate them in order of priority." Full-scale utilisation of this research is still years away. But our scientists and policy planners must keep in mind that derivatives of gene mapping, combined with better healthcare, hold the potential of catapulting India into the First World. We must look to that future.

(Aroon Purie)

MetroScape
Delhi On My Mind...
I'm very flattered to have this act of 'piracy' take place," laughs William Dalrymple, as extracts from his engrossing travelogue City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi were interpreted by photographer Agnes Montanari and art historian Nathalie Trouveroy in an exhibition.
more...

Looking Glass

Delhi: Restaurant

Delhi: Exhibition

Mumbai: Exhibition

"I was very much against the idea of India," says William Dalrymple, author, The City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi. In conversation with INDIA TODAY's Sonia Faleiro, he talks about his old girlfriend, Delhi and his "enormously exciting" next book, The White Moghuls in Interviews.